Karenia brevis Wilson Transcriptome and Translatome

The dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis, is endemic to the Gulf of Mexico, where it is responsible for red tides, which have significant environmental impacts and human health impacts through the production of brevetoxins, potent neurotoxins that target voltage sensitive sodium channels. Like most dinoflagellates, K. brevis has stable mRNA and appears to use primarily post-transcriptional regulation of its gene expression. In this project we explored changes in the transcriptome and translatome (actively translated messages, isolated from polysomes) following short term heat shock, using RNAseq.